Chapter II: Germany: Italy: Spain: the Scandinavian Countries: Poland

AND RUSSIA: HUNGARY: OTTOMAN TURKS: THE GREEK EMPIRE.

I. GERMANY.

THE GREAT INTERREGNUM.--After the death of _Frederick II_. (1250), Germany and Italy, the two countries over which the imperial authority extended, were left free from its control. _Italy_ was abandoned to itself, and thus to internal division. The case of _Germany_ was analogous. During the "great interregnum," lasting for twenty-three years, the German cities, by their industry and trade, grew strong, as did the burghers in France, and in the towns in England, in this period. But in Germany the feudal control was less relaxed. This interval was a period of anarchy and trouble. _William of Holland_ wore the title of emperor until 1256. Then the _electors_ were bribed, and _Alfonso X. of Castile_, great-grandson of Frederick Barbarossa, and _Richard, Earl of Cornwall_, younger son of King John of England, were chosen by the several factions; but their power was nominal. The four electors on the Rhine, and the dukes and counts, divided among themselves the imperial domains. The dismemberment of the duchies of _Swabia_ and _Franconia_ (1268), and at an earlier day (1180) of _Saxony_, created a multitude of petty sovereignties. The great vassals of the empire, the kings of _Denmark_, of _Poland_, of _Hungary_, etc., broke away from its suzerainty. There was a reign of violence. The barons sallied out of their strongholds to rob merchants and travelers. The princes, and the nobles in immediate relation to the empire, governed, each in his own territory, as they pleased. New means of protection were created, as the _League of the Rhine_, comprising sixty cities and the three Rhenish archbishops, and having its own assemblies; and the _Hanseatic League_, which has been described (p. 303). Moreover, corporations of merchants and artisans were established in the cities. In the North, where the Crusades, and war with the _Slaves_, had thinned the population, colonies of Flemings, Hollanders, and Frisians came in to cultivate the soil. During the long-continued disturbances after the death of _Frederick II_., the desire of local independence undermined monarchy. The empire never regained the vigor of which it was robbed by the _interregnum_.

HOUSE OF HAPSBURG.--_Rudolph_, Count of Hapsburg (1273-1291), was elected emperor for the reason, that, while he was a brave man, he was not powerful enough to be feared by the aristocracy. He wisely made no attempt to govern in Italy. He was supported by the Church, to which he was submissive. He devoted himself to the task of putting down disorders in Germany. Against _Ottocar II_., king of Bohemia, who now held also Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, and who refused to acknowledge Rudolph, the emperor twice made war successfully. In a fierce battle at the _Marchfield_, in 1278, _Ottocar_ was slain. _Austria_, _Styria_, and _Carniola_ fell into the hands of the emperor. They were given as fiefs to Rudolph's son _Albert_; and _Carinthia_ to Albert's son-in-law, the _Count of Tyrol_. This was the foundation of the power of the house of Hapsburg. _Rudolph_ strove with partial success to recover the crown lands, and did what he could to put a stop to private war and to robbery. Numerous strongholds of robbers he razed to the ground. His practical abandonment of Italy, his partial restoration of order in Germany, and his service to the house of Hapsburg, are the principal features of Rudolph's reign.

HENRY VII. (1308-1313): ITALY.--Adolphus of Nassau (1292-1298) was hired by _Edward I_. to declare war against France. His doings in Thuringia. which he tried to buy from the Landgrave _Albert_, led the electors to dethrone him, and to choose _Albert I_. (1298-1308), _Duke of Austria_, son of Rudolph. His nephew _John_, whom he tried to keep out of his inheritance, murdered him. _Henry VII_. (1308-1313), who was Count of _Luxemburg_, the next emperor, did little more than build up his family by marrying his son _John_ to the granddaughter of King _Ottocar_. _John_ was thus made king of Bohemia. In these times, when the emperors were weak, they were anxious to strengthen and enrich their own houses. _Henry_ went to Italy to try his fortunes beyond the Alps. He was crowned in Pavia king of Italy, and in Rome emperor (1312). But the rival parties quickly rose up against him: he was excommunicated by _Clement V_., an ally of France, and died--it was charged, by poison mixed in the sacramental cup--in 1313. He was a man of pure and noble character, but the time had passed for Italy to be governed by a German sovereign.

CIVIL WAR: ELECTORS AT RENSE.--One party of the electors chose _Frederick of Austria_ (1314-1330), and the other _Louis of Bavaria_ (1314-1347). A terrible civil war, lasting for ten years, was the consequence. In a great battle near _Mühldorf_, the Austrians were defeated, and _Frederick_ was captured. _Louis_ had now to encounter the hostility of Pope _John XXII_. (at Avignon), who wished to give the imperial crown to _Philip the Fair_ of France. _Louis_ maintained that he received the throne, not from the popes, but from the electors. He was excommunicated by _John_, who refused to sanction the agreement of Louis and of Frederick, now set at liberty, to exercise a joint sovereignty. _Louis_ was in Italy from 1327 to 1330, where he was crowned emperor by a pope of his own creation. All efforts of Louis to make peace with _Pope_ _John_ and his successor, _Benedict XII_., were foiled by the opposition of France. The strife which had been occasioned in Germany by this interference from abroad created such disaffection among the Germans, that the electors met at _Rense_, in 1338, and declared that the elected king of the Germans received his authority from the choice of the electoral princes exclusively, and was Roman emperor even without being crowned by a pope.

DEPOSITION OF LOUIS OF BAVARIA.--The imprudence of _Louis_ in aggrandizing his family, and his assumption of an acknowledged papal right in dissolving the marriage of the heiress of Tyrol with a son of _King John of Bohemia_, turned the electors against him. In 1346 Pope _Clement VI_. declared him deposed. The electors chose in his place _Charles_, the Margrave of _Moravia_, the son of King _John of Bohemia_. _Louis_ did not give up his title, but he died soon after.

CHARLES IV. (1347-1378).--_Charles IV_. visited Italy, and was crowned emperor (1355); but, according to a promise made to the Pope, he tarried in Rome only a part of one day. He was crowned king of Burgundy at _Arles_ (1365). In Italy "he sold what was left of the rights of the empire, sometimes to cities, sometimes to tyrants." His principal care was for building up his own hereditary dominion, which he so enlarged that it extended, at his death, from the Baltic almost to the Danube. He fortified and adorned _Prague_, and established there, in 1348, the first German university.

THE GOLDEN BULL.--The great service of _Charles IV_. to Germany was in the grant of the charter called the _Golden Bull_ (1356). This expressly conferred the right of electing the emperor on the SEVEN ELECTORS, who had, in fact, long exercised it. These were the archbishops of Mentz, of Trier, and of Cologne, and the four secular princes, the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony, and the Margrave of Brandenburg. The electoral states were made indivisible and inalienable, and hereditary in the male line. The electors were to be sovereign within their respective territories, and their persons were declared sacred.

THE BLACK DEATH.--Germany, like the other countries, was terribly afflicted during the reign of Charles by the destructive pestilence that swept over the most of Europe (p. 319). One effect was an outbreaking of religious fervor. At this time the movement of the "Flagellants," which started in the thirteenth century, reached its height in Germany and elsewhere. They scourged and lacerated themselves for their sins, marching in processions, and inflicting their blows to the sound of music. Another result of the plague was a savage persecution of the Jews, who were falsely suspected of poisoning wells. Many thousands of them were tortured and killed.

ANARCHY IN GERMANY.--The son of Charles IV. (1378-1400), _Wenceslaus_, or _Wenzel_, was a coarse and cruel king. Under him the old disorders of the _Interregnum_ sprang up anew. The towns had to defend themselves against the robber barons, and formed confederacies for this purpose. Private war raged all over Germany.

ACCESSION OF SIGISMUND.--_Wenceslaus_ was deposed by the electors in 1400. But _Rupert_, the Count Palatine, his successor (1400-1410), was able to accomplish little, in consequence of the strife of parties. _Sigismund_ (1410-1437), brother of _Wenceslaus_, margrave of Brandenburg, and, in right of his wife, king of Hungary, was chosen emperor, first by a part, and then by all, of the electors. The most important events of this period were the _Council of Constance_ (1414-1418) and the war with the _Hussites_.

JOHN HUSS.--The principal end for which the Council of Constance was called was the healing of the schism in the Church,--in consequence of which there were three rival popes,--and the securing of ecclesiastical reforms. But at this council _John Huss_, an eminent Bohemian preacher, was tried for heresy. The doctrines of _Wickliffe_ had penetrated into _Bohemia;_ and a strong party, of which Huss was the principal leader, had sprung up in favor of innovations, doctrinal and practical, one of which was the giving of the cup in the sacrament to the laity. _Huss_ made a great stir by his attack upon abuses in the Church. Under a safe-conduct from _Sigismund_, he journeyed to _Constance_. There he was tried, condemned as a heretic, and burnt at the stake (1415). _Jerome of Prague_, another reformer, was dealt with in the same way by the council (1416).

HUSSITE WAR.--The indignation of the followers of _Huss_ was such that a great revolt broke out in Bohemia. The leader was a brave man, _Ziska_. The imperial troops, after the coronation of _Sigismund_ as king of Bohemia, were defeated, and driven out. The Hussite soldiers ravaged the neighboring countries. The council of _Basel_ (1431-1449) concluded a treaty with the more moderate portion of the Hussites, in which concessions were made to them. The _Taborites_, the more fanatical portion, were at length defeated and crushed.

SWITZERLAND.--Switzerland, originally a part of the kingdom of _Arles_, had been ceded, with this kingdom, to the German Empire in 1033. Within it, was established a lay and ecclesiastical feudalism. In the twelfth century the cities--_Zürich_, _Basel_, _Berne_, and _Freiburg_--began to be centers of trade, and gained municipal privileges. The three mountain cantons--_Uri_, _Schweitz,_ and _Unterwalden_--cherished the spirit of freedom. The counts of _Hapsburg_, after the beginning of the thirteenth century, exercised a certain indefinite jurisdiction in the land. They endeavored to transform this into an actual sovereignty. Two of the cantons received charters placing them in an immediate relation to the empire. After the death of _Rudolph I_., the three cantons above named united in a league. Out of this the _Swiss Confederacy_ gradually grew up. There were struggles to cast off foreign control; but the story of _William Tell_, and other legends of the sort, are certainly fabulous. _Albert of Austria_ left to his successor in the duchy the task of subduing the rebellion. The Austrians were completely defeated at _Morgarten_, "the Marathon of Switzerland" (1315). The Swiss Confederacy was enlarged by the addition of _Lucerne_ (1332), _Zürich_ and _Glarus_ (1351), _Zug_ (1352), and of the city of _Berne_ in 1353. The battle of _Sempach_ (1386) brought another great defeat upon the Austrians. There, if we may believe an ancient song, a Swiss hero, _Arnold of Winkelried_, grasped as many of the spear-points as he could reach, as a sheaf in his arms, and devoted himself to death, opening thus a path in which his followers rushed to victory. Once more the Swiss triumphed at _Näfels_ (1388). From that time they were left to the enjoyment of their freedom.

II. ITALY.

GUELFS AND GHIBELLINES: FREEDOM IN THE CITIES.--The inveterate foes of Italy were foreign interference and domestic faction. After the death of _Frederick II_., the war of the popes against his successors lasted for seventeen years. After the defeat of _Manfred_ (1266), _Conradin_, the last of the Hohenstaufens, died on the scaffold at Naples. _Charles of Anjou_ lost Sicily through the rebellion of the Sicilian Vespers (1282); and dominion in that island, separated from Naples, passed to the house of Aragon. The papal states, after the election of _Rudolph_ of _Hapsburg_, became a distinct sovereignty of the pontiffs. The bitter strife of the _Guelfs_ and _Ghibellines_ went on in the Italian cities. The Genoese, who were Guelfic, defeated the Pisans in 1284; and "_Pisa_, which had ruined Amalfi, was now ruined by _Genoa_." _Florence_, which was Guelfic, grew in strength. _Genoa_ and _Venice_ became rivals in the contest for the control of the Mediterranean. In _Florence_, new factions, the _Neri_ and _Bianchi_ (Blacks and Whites), appeared; the _Neri_ being violent Guelfs, and the _Bianchi_ being at first moderate Guelfs and then Ghibellines. Pope _Boniface VIII_. invited into Italy _Charles of Valois_. He was admitted to Florence (1301), and gave the supremacy there to the Guelfic side. The coming of the Emperor _Henry VII_. into Italy (1310) was marked by a temporary, but the last, revival of imperial feeling. The connection of the popes with the French houses of _Anjou_ and _Valois_ led to the "Babylonian Exile" at _Avignon_, during which Italy was comparatively free, both from imperial and papal control. During the period of the civil wars, while there was nominally a conflict between the party of the pope and the party of the emperor, the _Guelfs_ were devoted to the destruction of feudalism, and to the building-up of commerce and republican institutions; while the _Ghibellines_, dreading anarchy, resisted the incoming of the new order of things. It was in this period that _Dante_ produced his immortal poem, which sprang out of the midst of the contest of Guelf and Ghibelline (p. 307). Dante was himself a Ghibelline and an imperialist. In the course of these conflicts, the plebeian class, before without power, is advanced. Older families of nobility die out, or are reduced in influence. New families rise to prominence and power. The burghers band together in arts or guilds; and out of these, in their corporate character, the governments of the cities are formed. "Ancients," and "priors," the heads of the "arts," supersede the consuls. The "podesta" is more and more limited to a judicial function. In some of the _Guelf_ cities, there is "a gonfalonier of justice," to curb the nobility. In _Florence_, there were also twenty subordinate _gonfaloniers_.

The final triumph of Guelfs and of republicanism in Florence was in 1253. The body of the citizens established their sovereignty. When, in 1266, citizenship was confined to those who were enrolled in the guilds, the nobles, or _Grandi_, were wholly excluded from the government. This led them to drop their titles and dignities in order to enroll themselves in these industrial societies. The feuds of factions, especially of the "Whites" and "Blacks," sprang up next. In the latter part of the fourteenth century, strife arose between the "Lesser Arts," or craftsmen whose trades were subordinate to the "Greater Arts," and these last. The mob in Florence drove the "Signory," or chief magistrates, out of the public palace. This was the "Tumult of the Ciompi,"--_Ciompi_ signifying wool-carders, who gave their name to the whole faction. Afterwards, of their own accord, they gave back the government to the priors of the Greater Arts. The effect of these disturbances was to reduce all classes to a level. The way was open for families, like the _Albizzi_ and _Medici_, to build up a virtual control by wealth and personal qualities.

THE GENERALS IN THE CITIES.--In the cities, there were "captains of the people," who carried on war,--leaders of the Guelfs or Ghibellines, as either might be uppermost. They were persons who were skilled in arms: these were often nobles who had been merged in the body of citizens. In this way, there arose in the cities of Northern Italy ruling houses or dynasties; as the _Della Scala_ in Verona, the _Polenta_ at Ravenna, etc. In _Tuscany_, where the commercial power of _Florence_ was so great, the communes as yet kept themselves free from hereditary rulers; yet, from time to time, their liberties were exposed to attack from successful generals.

THE TYRANTS.--At the beginning of the fourteenth century, as the fury of the civil wars declined, the cities were left more and more under the rule of masters called "tyrants." Tyranny, as of old, was a term for absolute authority, however it might be wielded. The visits of the emperors _Henry VII_., and _Louis IV_. of Bavaria, and of _John_ of Bohemia, son of Henry VII., had no important political effect, except to bring increased power to the Ghibelline despots. Thus, after the interference of Louis IV. (1327), the _Visconti_ established their power in Milan. But the changes in Italy after this epoch gave to the Ghibellines no permanent advantage over their adversaries. The leader of the Guelfs for a long time was _Robert_, king of Naples (1309-1343).

THE CLASSES OF DESPOTS.--The methods by which the Emperor _Frederic
II_. governed in Italy, and which he had partly learned from the
Saracens in Sicily, furnished an example which the Italian despots
followed later. He was imitated in his system of taxation, in his
creation of monopolies, in the luxury and magnificence of his court,
and in his patronage of polite culture. His vicar in the North of
Italy, _Ezzelino da Romano_ (1194-1259), who was captain, in the
Ghibelline interest, in _Verona_, _Padua_, and other
cities, was guilty of massacres and all sorts of cruelties, the story
of which exercised a horrible fascination over others who came
after. At last he was 'hunted down' by Venice and a league of cities,
and captured; but he refused to take food, tore his bandages from his
wounds, and died under the ban of the Church. The despots of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries have been divided by
_Mr. Symonds_ into six classes. The _first_ class had a
certain hereditary right from the previous exercise of lordship, as
the house of _Este_ in Ferrara. The _second_ class, as the
_Visconti_ family in Milan, had been vicars of the empire. The
_third_ class were captains, or podestas, chosen by the burghers
to their office, but abusing it to enslave the cities. Most of the
tyrants of Lombardy got their power in this way. The _fourth_
class is made up of the _Condottieri_, like _Francesco
Sforza_ at Milan. The _fifth_ class includes the nephews or
sons of popes, and is of later origin, like the _Borgia_ of
Romagna. Their governments had less stability. The _sixth_ class
is that of eminent citizens, like the _Medici_ at Florence and
the _Bentivogli_ of Bologna. These acquired undue authority by
wealth, sometimes by personal qualities and noble descent. Among
those who are called "despots" were individuals of worth, moderation,
and culture. The records of many of them are filled with tragic
scenes of violence and crime. To maintain their hated rule, they were
impelled to the practice of barbarities hardly ever surpassed. (J.
A. Symonds, _Renaissance in Italy_, vol. i. chap, ii.)

CONDOTTIERI.--With the end of the civil wars, there appear "the companies of adventure," or mercenary troops. The burghers, having put down the nobility and achieved their independence, lay aside their arms. They are busy in manufactures and trade. The despots and the republics prefer to hire foreign adventurers, the "free companies," who were a curse to Italy. Their occupation, which was a profitable one, was taken up by natives. These were the _condottieri_. Their leaders introduced cavalry and more skillful methods of fighting. But the battles were bloodless games of strategy, and military energy declined. At the same time intrigue and state-craft were the instruments of political aggrandizement. One of these new leaders was _Sforza Attendolo_, whose son became Duke of Milan.

FIVE STATES IN ITALY.--In the middle of the fifteenth century, we find, as the political result of the changes of the preceding century and a half, five principal communities in Italy. These powers are the kingdom of _Naples_, the duchy of _Milan_, the republic of _Florence_, the republic of _Venice_, and the _principality of the Pope_. A brief sketch will be given of each of these states down to 1447, when _Nicholas V_. reëstablished the papacy in its strength at Rome, after the exile at _Avignon_ (1305), and the ecclesiastical convulsions that followed it.

LOWER ITALY.--_Robert the Wise_ (of Anjou) (1309-1343), the successor of _Charles II_. of Naples and the champion of the Guelfs, could not extend his power over Sicily, where _Frederick_ II. (1296-1337), the son of _Peter_ of _Aragon_, reigned. Robert's granddaughter, _Joan I._, after a career of crime and misfortune, was strangled in prison by _Charles Durazzo_, the last male descendant of the house of Anjou in Lower Italy (1382), who seized on the government. _Joan II_., the last heir of _Durazzo_ (1414-1435), first adopted _Alfonso V_. of _Aragon_, and then _Louis III_. of _Anjou_ and his brother _Rene_. _Alfonso_, who inherited the crown of _Sicily_, united both kingdoms (1435), after a war with Rene and the _Visconti_ of Milan. By this contest, Italy was divided into two parties, composed of the respective adherents of the houses of _Anjou_ and _Aragon_, The rights of _Rene_ were to revert later to the crown of France, and to serve as a ground for new wars. For twenty-three years _Alfonso_ reigned wisely and prosperously in Southern Italy. He was a patron of letters, and promoted peace among the Italian states.

THE MILANESE: SFORZA.--Another great power was growing up in the North. The greatness of the _Visconti_ family dates from _John_, Archbishop of _Milan_, who reigned there, and died in 1354. _Gian Galeazzo Visconti_ became sole master of Milan in 1385, and extended his dominion over Lombardy. He bought of the Emperor _Wenceslaus_ the ducal title. Twenty-six cities, with their territories, were subject to him. But at _Galeazzo's_ death, his state fell to pieces. The _condottieri_, whom he had kept under, broke loose from control; and in 1450, one of them, _Francesco Sforza_, with the help of the Venetians, seized on the supreme power, which his family continued to hold for fifty years.

VENICE.--_Venice_, in the fourteenth century, was as strong as any Italian state. Its constitution was of gradual growth. The _doge_, elected by the people, divided power in 1032 with a _senate_; and in 1172 the _Grand Council_ was organized. This council by degrees absorbed the powers of government, which thus became an aristocracy. In 1297 the Senate became hereditary in a few families. In 1311 the powerful _Council of Ten_ was constituted. For a long period Venice was not ambitious of power in Italy, but was satisfied with her commerce with the East. Her contest with _Genoa_ began in 1352, and lasted for thirty years. In the war of _Chioggia_,--so called from a town twenty-five miles south of Venice,--the Venetians were defeated by _Luciano Doria_ in a sea-fight on the Adriatic. He blockaded Venice; but _Doria_, in turn, was blockaded in _Chioggia_ by the Venetians, and forced to surrender. After reducing the naval power of Genoa, they added _Verona_, _Vicenza_, and _Padua_ to their territories (1410). Under _Francesco Foscari_, who was doge from 1423 to 1457, Venice took an active part in Italian affairs.

FLORENCE: THE MEDICI.--In Florence, the _Medici_ family gained an influence which gave them a practical control of the government. In 1378 _Salvestro de Medici_ signalized himself by a successful resistance to an oligarchical faction composed partly of the old nobility. The brilliant period in the history of Florence begins with this triumph of the democracy. _Pisa_ was bought from the Duke of Milan, and forced to submit to Florentine rule (1406). _John de Medici_, a very successful merchant, was twice chosen gonfalonier (1421). His son _Cosmo I_., who was born in 1389, was also a merchant, possessed of great wealth. He attained to the leading offices in the state, having overcome the _Albizzi_ family, at whose instigation he was for a while banished. _Cosmo_ ruled under the republican forms, but with not less authority on that account. He was distinguished for his patronage of art and letters. By his varied services to Florence, he earned the title of "Father of his Country," which was given him by a public decree.

THE ROMAN PRINCIPALITY: RIENZI.--After the popes took up their abode in _Avignon_, in the first half of the fourteenth century, Rome was distracted by the feuds of leading families who built for themselves strongholds in the city. In 1347 the Romans, fired by the enthusiast _Rienzi_, who sought to restore the old Roman liberty, undertook to set up a government after the ancient model. _Rienzi_ was chosen _tribune_. He found much favor in other cities of Italy. But his head was turned by the seeming realization of his dreams. He was driven out of Italy by the cardinals and the nobles. He returned afterwards, sent by Pope _Innocent VI_., to aid in winning back Rome to subjection to the Holy See. But his power was gone. He disgusted the people with his pomps and shows, and, while trying to escape in disguise, was put to death (1354). Cardinal _Albornoz_ succeeded in reuniting the dissevered parts of the papal kingdom. But in the period of the _Schism_ (1378-1417), in the cities old dynasties were revived, and new ones arose; towns and territories were ceded to nobles as fiefs; and a degree of freedom almost amounting to independence was conceded to old republics, as _Rome_, _Perugia_, and _Bologna_. It was the work of Pope _Nicholas V_. and his successors (from 1477) to regain and cement anew the fragments of the papal principality.

LITERATURE AND ART.--In this period, in the midst of political agitation in Italy, there was a brilliant development in the departments of literature and art. The major part of _Dante's_ life (1265-1321) falls within the thirteenth century. _Petrarch_ (1304-1374), _Boccaccio_ (1313-1375), a master in Italian prose, and _Dante_, are the founders of Italian literature. They are followed by an era of study and culture, rather than of original production. In the arts, _Venice_ and _Pisa_ first became eminent. The church of _St. Mark_ was built at Venice, in the Byzantine style, in 1071. At about the same time the famous cathedral at _Pisa_ was begun; which was followed, in the twelfth century, by the _Baptistery_ and the _Leaning Tower_. The _Campo Santo_, or cemetery, was built in 1278. In the thirteenth century, when architectural industry was so active, numerous high brick towers were built in Florence for purposes of defense. Some of them remain "to recall the bloody feuds of the irreconcilable factions of the nobility. In these conflicts, the strife was carried on from tower to tower, from house to house: streets were barricaded with heavy chains, and homes made desolate with fire and sword." Churches and great public buildings were constructed in this period. At the end of the thirteenth century the church of _Santa Croce_ was built at Florence; and in the century following, _Brunelleschi_, the reviver of classical art in Italy, placed the great cupola on the Cathedral. The Gothic cathedral of _Milan_, with its wilderness of statues, was begun in 1346. _Cimabue_, who died about 1302, and _Giotto_, who died about 1337, laid the foundations of the modern Italian schools of painting.

TRADE AND COMMERCE.--The seaports, Venice and Genoa, were centers of a flourishing commerce, extending to the far East and to the coasts of Spain and France. The interior cities--_Milan_ with its two hundred thousand inhabitants, _Verona, Florence_--were centers of manufactures and of trade. The Italians were the first _bankers_ in Europe. The bank of _Venice_ was established in 1171, and the bank of _Genoa_, although it was projected earlier, was founded in 1407. The financial dealings of Italian merchants spread over all Europe.

MORALITY.--The one thing lacking in Italy was a broader spirit of patriotism and a higher tone of morality. Advance in civilization was attended with corruption of morals.

III. SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.

HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY.--Resistance to the Arabs in Spain began in the northern mountainous region of _Cantabria_ and _Asturia_, which even the West Goths had not wholly subdued, although _Asturia_ was called _Gothia_. _Asturia_, a Christian principality (732), expanded into the kingdom called _Leon_ (916), of which Castile was an eastern county. East of _Leon_, there grew up the kingdom of _Navarre_, mostly on the southern, but partly on the northern side of the Pyrenees. On the death of _Sancho the Great_, it was broken up (1035). At about the same time the Ommiad caliphate was broken up into small kingdoms (1031). After the death of _Sancho_, or early in the eleventh century, we find in Northern Spain, beginning on the west and moving eastward, the kingdom of _Leon_, the beginnings of the kingdom of _Castile_, the reduced kingdom of _Navarre_, the beginnings of the kingdom of _Aragon_, and, between Aragon and the Mediterranean, Christian states which had been comprised in the _Spanish March_ over which the Franks had ruled. The two states which were destined to attain to the chief importance were _Castile_ and _Aragon_. Of these, _Castile_ was eventually to be to Spain what France was to all Gaul. Ultimately the union of _Castile_ and _Aragon_ gave rise to the great Spanish monarchy of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The four kingdoms of _Leon, Castile, Aragon,_ and _Navarre_, after the death of _Sancho_, as time went on, were joined and disjoined among themselves in many different ways. _Castile_ and _Leon_ were finally united in 1230. _Portugal_, lying on the ocean, was partly recovered from the Arabs towards the close of the eleventh century, and was a county of _Leon_ and _Castile_ until, in 1139, it became a kingdom. From this time _Castile, Aragon,_ and _Portugal_ were the three antagonists of Moslem rule. Each of these kingdoms advanced. _Portugal_ spread especially along the Atlantic coast; _Aragon_, along the coast of the Mediterranean; _Castile_, the principal power, spread in the interior, and included by far the greater part of what is now Spain. In the latter part of the thirteenth century the Moslems were confined to the kingdom of _Granada_ in the South, which was conquered by _Castile_ and _Aragon_ (1492), whose _sovereigns, Ferdinand_ and _Isabella_, were united in marriage. Their _kingdoms_ were united in 1516. In the latter part of the Middle Ages, _Aragon_, from its situation on the eastern coast, played an important part in the politics of Europe. _Castile_ and _Portugal_ led the way in maritime exploration.

THE MOORS.--It has been already related (p. 282), that, after the fall of the Ommiad caliphate, African Mohammedans came over to the help of their Spanish brethren. These _Moors_ did not supplant the Arabic speech or culture. The two principal invasions of the Moors were the invasion by the _Almoravides_ (1086-110), and that by the _Almohades_ (1146).

ARAGON: NAVARRE.--The kingdoms of _Aragon_ and _Castile_ existed for centuries side by side. _Aragon_ sought to extend its conquests along the eastern coast; _Castile_, to enlarge itself toward the south. _James I._, or James the Conqueror (1213-1276), joined the Moslem state of _Valencia_, by conquest, to his kingdom of _Aragon_, to which _Catalonia_ had already been added. The union of these peoples developed a national character of a definite type. In its pride of birth and of blood, its tenacious clinging to traditional rights, and in its esteem of military prowess before intellectual culture, it resembled the old Spartan temper. _Peter III._,(1276-1285), the son of _James I._, united with the three states _Sicily_, which, though it became a separate kingdom, gave to the house of Aragon its influence in _Southern Italy_. Nearly the whole of the fourteenth century was taken up by Aragon in the acquisition of _Sardinia_, which the Pope had ceded, and in the endless wars, connected with this matter, which it waged with the _Genoese_. In 1410 the ruling house of _Barcelona_ became extinct. In the revolutions that followed, _Navarre_ and _Aragon_ were united under _John II._, second son of _Ferdinand I._, king of Aragon. _John_, by his marriage with _Blanche_ of Navarre, shared her father's throne with her after his death. He was guilty of the crime of poisoning his own son _Don Carlos_, Prince of Vianne. John was the father of _Ferdinand_ "the Catholic," under whose scepter the kingdoms of _Aragon, Castile_, and _Navarre_ were brought together.

CASTILE.--_Ferdinand III_. (St. Ferdinand) (1214-1252), in warfare with the Moors extended the kingdom of _Castile_ and _Leon_ over _Cordova, Seville_, and _Cadiz_. His son _Alfonso X._, or Alfonso the Wise (1252-1284), cultivated astronomy and astrology, was fond of music and poetry, enlarged the University of Salamanca, gave a code of laws to his kingdom, and caused historical books to be written; but he wasted his treasures in pomp and luxury, and in ambitious designs upon the German imperial crown. He allowed the _Merinides_, new swarms of African Saracens, to spread in the South of Spain. _Alfonso XI._ (1312-1350), after a stormy contest with the nobles during his minority, distinguished himself by the victory of _Tarifa_ over the Moors (1340), and the taking of the city of _Algeciras_ (1344). His enemies respected him; and when he died of the plague, in his camp before Gibraltar, the king of _Granada_ went into mourning (1350). The reign of _Peter the Cruel_ (1350-1369) was filled up with perfidies and crimes. The league of the nobles against him only incited him to fresh barbarities. He committed the most atrocious murders, sometimes with his own hand. Protected by the _Black Prince_, he was at first victorious against _Henry of Transtamare_ his rival; and Du Guesclin was defeated in the battle of _Najara_ in 1367. Afterwards _Peter_ was obliged to surrender, and was killed by the dagger of _Henry_ in a personal encounter. The power of the nobility in _Castile_ had so increased during the civil troubles that _Henry III_. (1390-1406) had to sell his cloak to procure for himself a dinner. Roused by this humiliation to assert his authority, he succeeded with the help of the _Cortes_ in humbling the nobility; but _John II_. (1406-1454) was compelled by the most powerful lords, after a protracted contest, to strike off the head of an unworthy favorite, _Alvaro de Luna_, under whose despotic control he had placed the government (1454). There was a worse state of anarchy under _Henry IV._, John's successor (1454-1474).

CONSTITUTIONS OF ARAGON AND CASTILE.--The political institutions of _Aragon_ and _Castile_ are specially worthy of note. The kings of _Aragon_ were very much restricted in their authority by the _Cortes_, or general assembly, composed of the higher and lower classes of nobles, the clergy, and the cities, which by their trade and manufactures had risen to wealth and power. With the _Cortes_ was lodged the right to make laws and to lay taxes. At _Saragassa_ in 1287, it was likewise ordained that they should enjoy certain important _privileges._ The concurrence of the estates was to be required in the choice of the king's _counselors;_ and in case the king without the warrant of a judgment of the highest judicial officer, _the justiciary,_ and of the estates, should adjudge to punishment any member of the body, they should have the right to elect another king. These "privileges" were lost under _Peter IV._ (1336-1387), but the old rights were confirmed. To the _justiciary_ was given the power to determine all conflicts of the estates with the king or with one another. His influence increased as time went on. He was the first magistrate in the kingdom.

In _Castile,_ as early as 1169 the deputies of the cities were admitted into the Cortes. We find the cities, at the end of the thirteenth century, forming a confederation, called a "fraternity," against the nobles. Their deputies at that time had more power in the assemblies than the nobles and clergy. But the power of the nobles increased, especially from the accession of _Henry of Transtamare._ In the overthrow of _Alvaro de Luna,_ their triumph was complete: they proved themselves to be stronger than the king.

THE CASTILIANS.--The Spanish Mohammedans were superior in refinement
to their Christian adversaries. The latter learned much from their
enemies, without losing the patriotic and religious ardor which was
fostered by the popular minstrelsy, and by the romantic exploits and
encounters with the "infidels." The result was the peculiar spirit of
Castilian chivalry. The early development of popular government in
_Castile_ increased the feeling of personal
independence. Outside of Italy, no cities of Europe in the Middle
Ages were so rich and flourishing as the cities of _Castile,_
Materials of commerce were afforded by the famous breed of sheep, and
by the products of the soil and of manufactures. The nobles gained
great wealth, and had vast estates in the country. They held court as
petty sovereigns: _Alvaro de Luna_ had twenty thousand
vassals. They were inured to war, they were haughty and overbearing,
and complaints of their oppressions were frequent on the part of the
lower orders. The Castilian ecclesiastics were often lax in their
morals. The higher prelates were possessed of great riches and
authority. In the beginning of the fifteenth century the people in
_Castile_ had more power, compared with the power of the
sovereign, than in any other European country. But the representation
of the commons was exclusively from the cities, and not, as in
England, largely from the landed proprietors.

THE ARAGONESE.--The extraordinary authority exercised by the
_justiciary,_ or justice, of Aragon was perhaps the most
remarkable feature of its constitution. Dwelling on the ocean, the
Aragonese built up a naval power. _Barcelona,_ after its union
with Aragon, was the seat of a flourishing commerce, and framed the
first written code of maritime law now extant. Its municipal officers
were merchants and mechanics. Membership in the guilds was sought by
nobles, as rendering them eligible to the magistracy. The burghers
became proud and independent. The Catalans did not hesitate to assert
their rights against encroachments of the kings. In 1430 the
University of Barcelona was founded. "After the genuine race of
troubadours had passed away," says Mr. Prescott, "the Provencal or
Limousin verse was carried to its highest excellence by the poets of
Valencia" (Prescott's _History of the Reign of Ferdinand and
Isabella,_ Introduction).

PORTUGAL: COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION.--About 1095 _Alfonso VI.,_ king of _Castile_ and _Leon,_ gave the territory between the _Minho_ and the _Douro_ to his son-in-law, _Henry of Burgundy,_ who assumed the title of Count of Portugal. His son and successor, _Alfonso I.,_ who defeated the Moors at _Ourique_ in 1139, was hailed as king by his army, and later was confirmed in the title by the Pope (1185). He was acknowledged as independent by the king of Castile. In a diet at _Laimego_, he gave an excellent constitution and body of laws to his people (1143). Soon after, he conquered _Lisbon_, and made it his capital. His son, _Sancho I._ (1185-1211), was distinguished both for his victories over the Moors and for his encouragement of tillage and of farm-laborers. Until we reach the fifteenth century, Portuguese history is occupied with wars with the Moors and the Castilians, contests of the kings with the nobles, and struggles between rival aspirants for the throne, and between the sovereigns on the one hand and the clergy and the popes on the other. Under _Dionysius III_. (1279-1325) there began a new era, in which the Portuguese became eminent for industry and learning, and in commerce and navigation. He founded the University of Lisbon. _Alfonso IV_. (1325-1357) continued on the same path. But he caused _Ines de Castro_, who had been secretly married to his son, to be murdered (1354); a crime which the son, _Peter I_. (1357-1367), after his accession, avenged by causing the hearts of the murderers to be torn out. _John I_. (1385-1433) repelled a great invasion of the Castilians, in a battle near Lisbon, and became at first regent and then king. He was the founder of a new family. By him _Ceuta_ in Africa was captured from the Moors. _Madeira_ was discovered (1419), and by the burning of the forests was prepared for the cultivation of sugar-cane and the vine. In 1432 the Portuguese occupied the _Azores_. A most active interest in voyages of discovery was taken by _Prince Henry the Navigator_ (1394-1460), fourth son of King _John I_. and of _Philippa_, daughter of _John of Gaunt_.

IV. THE SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES.

THE BALTIC LANDS.--There are three divisions of Europe which neither Charlemagne's Empire nor the Eastern Empire included. The first is _Spain_, which had been comprised in the old Roman Empire. The second is _Great Britain_ and the adjacent islands. Only a portion of Britain was held as a province by old Rome. The third is the two _Scandinavian_ peninsulas,--Denmark, and Norway and Sweden, with the _Slavonic_ lands to the east and south, which may be said to have had a common relation to the _Baltic_. The _Scandinavians_ had their period of foreign conquest and settlement, but their settlements abroad remained in no connection with the countries whence they came. _Sweden_ was cut off from the ocean. "The history of Sweden"--as Mr. Freeman, to whom we owe a lucid exposition of this subject, has pointed out--"mainly consists in the growth and the loss of her dominion in the Baltic lands out of her own peninsula. It is only in quite modern times that the union of the crowns, though not of the kingdoms, of Sweden and Norway, has created a power wholly peninsular and equally Baltic and oceanic." The Germans and Scandinavians spread their dominion over the Aryan and non-Aryan tribes on the south and east of the Baltic. _Finland_, inhabited by a Turanian or Scythic people whose language is akin to that of the Hungarians, was long under Swedish dominion. Now Finland and the east of the Baltic are in Russia, while the southern and south-eastern shore of the Baltic is German. _Russia_, in modern days, having no oceanic character like Great Britain and Spain, has expanded her dominion westward to the Baltic, but mainly to the east over Central Asia. She has built up a _continental_, instead of a maritime and colonial, empire.

CONVERSION OF SCANDINAVIA.--In the earlier part of the Middle Ages, the two Scandinavian peninsulas are known only through the piratical expeditions which they send forth upon the two adjacent seas. By the way of the North Sea, the Northmen reached France, England, Greenland, and America; by the way of the Baltic, Russia. The conversion of _Denmark_ to Christianity was completed in the eleventh century, under _Canute_; that of Norway in the tenth, and of Sweden in the eleventh. After the foreign settlements were made, and with the introduction of the gospel, piracy ceased, and civilization began (p. 239).

DENMARK.--After _Canute VI._ (1182), _Waldemar II._, the Victorious, was the prominent personage in Danish history. He conquered _Holstein_ and _Pomerania_,--in fact, every thing north of the Elbe and the Elde. In 1219 he overran _Esthonia_, in a crusade for the forcible conversion of the pagans, when the Danish standard, the _Dannebrog_,--a white cross on a blood-red field,--began to be used. On his return, he was treacherously captured, and with his son was kept in prison in Mecklenburg for three years, by _Henry_, Count of _Schwerin_. _Waldemar_ was defeated in 1227, in the war undertaken to recover the conquests which he had given up as the price of his release. He was the author of a code of laws.

UNION OF CROWNS.--_Waldemar III._ (1340-1375) regained the conquests of Waldemar II. This brought on a general war, in which the _Hanseatic League_, as well as Sweden, were among his antagonists (1363). Denmark, having control of the entrance to the Baltic, and exacting tolls of vessels, was a second time involved in war with that great mercantile confederacy and its allies, and was worsted in the conflict (1372). Waldemar's second daughter, _Margaret_, married _Hakon VI._, King of Norway. Hakon's son _Olaf_ was a child at his father's death, and the regency was held by his mother. _Olaf_ (1376-1387) was elected by the Estates king of _Denmark_. His mother, now regent in both countries, became queen in both after _Olaf's_ death. In 1388 Margaret accepted the crown of Sweden; the Swedes having revolted against the king, _Albert_, who was defeated and captured at _Falkoeping_ (1389).

SWEDEN.--War existed for centuries between the _Swedes_ and the _Goths_, the inhabitants of the southern part of the peninsula. Each race contended for supremacy. Political union began with _Waldemar_ (1250-1275), son of _Birger Jarl_ (Earl Birger). Stockholm was founded in 1255. Private wars and judicial combats were suppressed, commerce was encouraged, and the condition of women improved. Large duchies were established, afterwards a source of discord. _Magnus I_. (1279-1290) was surnamed _Ladulas_, or _Barnlock_, for protecting the granaries of the peasants from the rapacious nobles. His reign was succeeded by war between his sons. As the result of a popular revolt in 1319, _Magnus Smek_, an infant, became king, and during the regency succeeded, by right of his mother, to the crown of _Norway_, where he (1350) placed on the throne his son _Hakon_. But when _Magnus_ attempted to rule without the senate, he was deposed, and _Albert_ of _Mecklenburg_ was elected king (1365). But the nobles were supreme: in 1388 they deposed _Albert_, and gave the crown to _Margaret_ of Norway and Denmark. _Albert_ was held a prisoner for six years, and then renounced his claim to the throne.

NORWAY.--_Magnus III_. (1095-1103), called from his Scottish dress _Barefoot_, united the _Hebrides_ and _Orcades_ into a kingdom for his son _Sigurd_, and invaded Iceland, where he died. _Sigurd_ inherited the spirit of _Harold Fairhair_ (860-about 933), through whom Norway had been made a united kingdom. He made a voyage to Jerusalem through the Mediterranean, and was a renowned crusader. After his death (1130), there were fierce contests for the throne, the more fierce as illegitimate sons had the same right in law as those born in wedlock. In 1152 a papal legate established a hierarchy in Norway, which interfered in the struggle. Conflicts arose between the clerical party and the national party, in which the latter at length gained the day. Under _Hakon VI_., _Iceland_ was conquered (1260). _Magnus VI_. (1263-1280) brought in an era of quiet, without stifling popular freedom. The cities engaged actively in manufactures and commerce. _Magnus_ strengthened and organized the military and naval force. By him the _Hebrides_ were ceded to Scotland. Under _Eric_ (1280-1299), called _Priest-hater_, there was a struggle to curb the power of the clergy and nobles, in which the king was aided by the peasants. He was worsted in the conflict with the Hanse towns, and compelled to join their League. The accession of _Magnus Smek_, the son of his daughter, to the throne of Norway (1319), led eventually to the _Union_ of _Calmar_ (1397), in which Sweden, Norway, and Denmark were brought together.

"The situation of Norway, during the Middle Ages, might be shortly described as an absolute monarchy resting almost directly on one of the most democratic states of society in Europe." The greater families, by the partition of their estates, became a part of the class of small land-owners. Between them and the king there was no intermediate class.

AFTER THE UNION OF CALMAR.--After the death of _Margaret_, who governed the united kingdoms after the union, _Eric XIII_. of Pomerania succeeded. The union was shaken by the revolt of _Schleswig_ and of _Holstein_, and was dissolved on the death of _Christopher_ of Bavaria (1448), who had been chosen king. The Swedes broke off, and made _Charles Canutson_ king, under the name of _Charles VIII_. _Denmark_ and _Norway_ remained united; and under _Christian I_. of the house of _Oldenburg_, whom they made king, _Schleswig_ and _Holstein_ were again attached to Denmark (1459).

V. POLAND AND RUSSIA.

THE SLAVONIC TRIBES.--The settlement of the _Hungarians_ (Magyars) in Europe had the effect to divide the Slavonic tribes into three general groups. The _northern_ Slaves were separated from the Slaves south of the Danube,--the inhabitants of Servia, Croatia, Dalmatia, etc. The _north-western_ Slaves bordered on the Western Empire. The states of _Bohemia_ and _Poland_ grew up among them. On the east of this group of Slaves were the Russians. Both _Poland_ and _Russia_ became independent kingdoms. In the course of history, a part of the _north Slavonic lands_, those which are represented by Mecklenburg, Pomerania, Brandenburg, and Saxony, were Germanized. Lands in the _south-west_, as Bohemia and Moravia, remained predominantly Slavonic in speech. A _central_ region formed the kingdom of Poland. On the east were the Slavonic tribes which were the nucleus of modern _Russia_.

LITHUANIANS AND PRUSSIANS.--Both _Poland_ and _Russia_ were originally cut off from the Baltic by other races. Such were the non-Aryan _Fins_ in Esthonia (Esthland) and Livonia (Livland). Such, also, were the Aryans of the _Lettic_ branch, of whom the _Lithuanians_ and the _Prussians_ were the principal divisions. The _Lithuanians_ formed at one time a strong state. The _Prussians_ finally gave their name to the Teutonic kingdom in which they were absorbed.

THE POLES.--The _Poles_ derive their name from a word meaning _plains_. They were inhabitants of the plains. They were the strongest of a group of tribes dwelling between the Oder and the Vistula, and holding the coast between their mouths. Between them and the sea, on the east of the Vistula, were the _Prussians_.

POLAND: ITS CONSTITUTION.--In the tenth century the _Lechs_, or _Poles_, on the Vistula, had acquired considerable power, and had a center at _Gnesen_, which remained the metropolis of Poland. There are legends of a first duke, _Piast_ by name. A dynasty which bore his name continued in Poland until 1370; in Silesia, until 1675. _Miecislas I_. was converted to Christianity by his wife, a Bohemian princess. He did homage to the Emperor _Otto I_. (978). _Boleslav I_. (992) aspired to the regal dignity, and had himself crowned as king by his bishops. _Gregory VII_. excommunicated him, deprived him of the title of king, and laid Poland under an interdict. _Boleslav III_., the Victorious (1102-1138), subdued the _Pomeranians_, and compelled them to receive Christianity. He divided his kingdom among his four sons. _Silesia_ became an independent duchy. A long crusade was carried on against the _Prussians_, a heathen people, who attacked the Poles, by the "Brethren of the soldiers of Christ," and the "Teutonic knights," two orders which were united (about 1226). The Teutonic knights at length became the enemies of the Poles. The savage _Lithuanians_ assailed them on the north. From the anarchy that reigned, Poland was rescued by _Casimir III_., the Great (1333-1370), who defeated the Russians, and carried his eastern boundary as far as the _Dnieper_. Prior to this time, Poland was an important kingdom. Casimir framed a code of written laws for his people, and gave an impulse to commerce. But in order to secure the election of his nephew, _Louis_ king of Hungary (1370-1382), he had to increase the powers and privileges of the nobles. The accession of _Louis_ terminated the long rivalry of Poland and Hungary. He, like _Casimir_, died without children. The nobles made _Jagellon_, the Grand Duke of _Lithuania_, his successor (1386), who took the name of _Vladislav II_. Under a series of conquering princes, _Lithuania_ had extended its dominion over the neighboring Russian lands, and become a strong state. _Vladislav_ was chosen on the condition that he should espouse the daughter of the last king, and, with his nation, embrace Christianity. This event doubled the territory of Poland. The _Teutonic Knights_, who ruled from the Oder to the Gulf of Finland, were now overcome. The treaty of _Thorn_ (1466) confined their dominion to _Eastern Prussia_. The misfortune of _Poland_ was its political constitution. Although the monarchy was not yet completely elective, but hereditary in the house of _Jagellon_, the election of every king had to be sanctioned by the nobles. They alone took part in the diet, and held the offices and honors. There was no burgher class, no "third estate." Every man who owned and was able to equip a horse was counted as a noble. The burden of taxation fell on the peasants.

NATURAL FEATURES OF RUSSIA.--Russia in Europe comprises at present more than half the territory of that entire continent. Yet it has but a small share of seaboard, and of this a large part is frozen in winter. The surface of Russia is of a piece with the boundless plateaus of Northern and Central Asia. It has been defined as the "Europe of plains, in opposition to the Europe of mountains." The mountains of Russia are chiefly on its boundaries. It is a country subject to extremes of heat and cold. From the scarcity of stone, all buildings were formerly of wood, and hence its towns were all combustible. The rivers of Russia have been of immense importance in its history. "The whole history of this country is the history of its three great rivers, and is divided into three periods,--that of the _Dnieper_ with _Kiev_, that of the _Volga_ with _Moscow_, and that of the _Neva_ with _Novgorod_ in the eighth century, and _St. Petersburg_ in the eighteenth."

RUSSIANS AND POLES.--The Russian Slaves in the ninth century occupied but a small part of what is now Russia. There was probably little difference then between them and the Poles; but the one people were molded by the Greek Church and Greek civilization, the other by the Latin Church and by the collective influences of Western Europe.

RUSSIAN HISTORY.--The Northmen under _Rurik_ had founded their dominion in Russia. _Novgorod_ was their center. Thence they pushed their conquests to the south. Their descendants made _Kiev_, on the Dnieper, their capital. In Russia, as elsewhere, the Scandinavians quickly blended with their native subjects. Under _Vladimir I._ (980-1015), who was converted to Greek Christianity, with his people, and _Iaroslaf I._ (1019-1051), they attained to considerable power; but the custom of the sovereigns to divide their dominions among their sons, broke up their territory into a multitude of petty principalities. The result was a monotonous series of fierce contests, without any substantial result. In the midst of the bloody and profitless civil wars occurred the great invasion of the _Mongols_, who destroyed the principality of _Kiev_, and made that of _Vladimir_ tributary. For two centuries the Russians continued under the yoke of the "Golden Horde," which the Mongols established on the Volga. They were obliged to pay tribute, and the Russian princes at their accession had to swear fealty to the _khan_ on the banks of the river _Amoor_. At the time of the Mongol conquest, _Novgorod_ was the center of Russian dominion. Towards the end of the thirteenth century, _Moscow_ became a new center of Russian power. From _Moscow_ comes the name _Muscovy_. "Muscovy was to Russia what France in the older sense was to the whole land which came to bear that name." In the fourteenth century, while _Lithuania_ and _Poland_ were absorbing by conquest the territories of earlier or _Western_ Russia, the Duchy of _Moscow_ was building up a new Russia in the East, out of which grew the Russia of to-day. _Ivan I._, regarded as the founder of the Russian monarchy, made Moscow his capital in 1328. Most of the other princes were subject to him. _Demetrius_ (or _Dimtri) I_. gained two great victories over the Mongol horde (1378 and 1380); but in 1382 they burned _Moscow_, and slew twenty-four thousand of its inhabitants. It was not until the reign of _Ivan III_., Ivan the Great (1462-1505), that _Novgorod_ submitted to _Moscow_, and Russia was wholly delivered from the control and influence of the Mongols.

VI. HUNGARY.

THE ARPAD DYNASTY.--The chiefs of the Turanian _Magyars_, about 889, elected _Arpad_ as successor of the leader under whom they had crossed the Carpathian Mountains. They overran Hungary and Transylvania, and terrified Europe by their invasions (p. 249). After their defeats by the emperors _Henry I_. and _Otto the Great_ (p. 261), they confined themselves to their own country. The first king, _Stephen_,--St. Stephen,--was crowned, with the consent of Pope _Sylvester II_., in the year 1000. He divided the land into counties, organized the Church, and founded convents and schools. He conferred on the bishops high offices. He established a national council, composed of the lords temporal and spiritual, and of the knights, out of which sprung the _diets_. _Ladislaus I_. conquered _Croatia_ (1089), and a part of the "Red Russian" land of _Galicia_ (1093). Coloman, "the Learned," a brave and able man, annexed _Dalmatia_, which he wrested from the Venetians (1102). In the reign of _Andrew II_. (1205-1235), the "Golden Bull" was extorted by the nobles, which conferred on them extraordinary rights and privileges, including exemption from arrest prior to trial and conviction, and the control of the diet over appointments to office. It even authorized armed resistance on their part to tyrannical measures of the king,--a right that was not abrogated until 1687. Hungary was devastated by the great Tartar invasion (1241-42) (p. 283). The kings of Hungary supported the cause of _Rudolph_ of Austria against _Ottocar_ of Bohemia (p. 332).

INVASIONS OF THE TURKS.--The last king of the _Arpad_ dynasty died in 1301. There was a division of parties in the choice of a successor. Pope _Boniface VIII_. and the clergy supported the claims of Count _Charles Robert of Anjou_, who was related to the former reigning family. Under the son of _Charles Robert, Louis,_ who also succeeded _Casimir III_. as king of Poland (1370), Hungary became a very powerful state. _Galicia_ was regained, _Moldavia_ and _Bulgaria_ were conquered. After the death of _Louis_, his daughter _Maria_ reigned from 1386 conjointly with _Sigismund_, afterwards emperor, and king of Bohemia. He established his supremacy over _Bosnia_. From this time the invasions of the _Turks_ begin. There had been a party in favor of raising to the throne _Vladislaus_, king of Poland; and after the death of Sigismund's successor, _Albert II_. of Austria (1437), and the death of the queen, he gained the crown (1442). He was slain at _Varna_, in the great battle in which the Hungarians were vanquished by the Turks (1444). _John Hunyady_, who had several times defeated the Turks, and who escaped on the field of Varna, was made for the time "governor;" but on the release of the son of Albert, _Ladislaus Posthumus_, who had been kept from the throne by the Emperor _Frederick III_., he was recognized as king (1452). _Hun-yady_ was made general-in-chief. _Frederick_ had also retained in his hands the crown, which had been intrusted to his care, and which Hungarians have always regarded with extreme veneration. A little later, great advantages were gained over the Turks, to be lost again in the sixteenth century.

VII. THE OTTOMAN TURKS.

OSMAN: MURAD I.--Towards the end of the thirteenth century, the _Osman_ (or _Ottoman_) _Turks_, warlike nomad hordes, in order to escape from the _Mongols_, moved from the region east of the Caspian Sea, and conquered in Asia Minor the remnant of the kingdom of the Seljukians (p. 270). Impelled by fanaticism and the desire of booty, _Ottoman_ (or _Osman_), their leader, advanced into _Bithynia_, and took _Pruse_, or _Broussa_, one of the most important cities of Asia Minor. The Greeks, with their Catalonian auxiliaries, were not able to dislodge him from his new possession. The Byzantine court was disabled from making an energetic effort for this end, by the partisan rancor, and mingled lethargy and cruelty, which characterized the old age of the Greek Empire. _Nicomedia_, _Nicoea_, and _Ilium_ were conquered by the Sultan (or _Padishah_). _Murad I_. (1361-1389) founded the corps of _janizaries_, composed of select Christian youth chosen from the captives for their beauty and vigor. These became the most effective soldiers,--sometimes dangerous, however, to the sultans themselves. _Adrianople_ was taken by _Murad_, and made the seat of his authority. The Christian principalities of _Thrace_, and the ancient but depopulated cities founded by the Greeks and Romans, were overrun. The Servians and Bulgarians made a stand against the fierce Ottoman warriors, but were beaten in the battle of _Kosovo_, where _Murad_was slain.

BAJAZET.--_Bajazet_, the son and successor of _Murad_, outdid his predecessor in his martial prowess. He conquered _Macedonia_ and _Thessaly_, and _Greece_ to the southern end of Peloponnesus. The Emperor _Sigismund_ and _John of Burgundy_, with one hundred thousand men, were utterly defeated in the sanguinary battle of _Nicopolis_ (1396). _Sigismund_ escaped by sea; the French counts and knights had to be redeemed from captivity with a large ransom; and ten thousand prisoners of lower rank were slaughtered by _Bajazet_. _Bosnia_ was now in the hands of the victor. _Constantinople_ had to pay tribute, and seemed likely to become his prey, when a temporary respite was obtained for it by the coming of a host even more powerful than that of _Bajazet_.

MONGOLIAN INVASION.--_Timur_, or _Tamerlane_, a descendant of _Genghis Khan _(p. 283), revived the fallen Tartar kingdom. At the head of his wandering _Tartars_, which grew into an army, he left _Samarcand_, where he had caused himself to be proclaimed sovereign, and, in a rapid career of conquest, made himself master of the countries from the Wall of China to the Mediterranean, and from the boundaries of Egypt to Moscow. Everywhere his path was marked with blood and with the ruins of the places which he destroyed. At _Ispahan_, in Persia, seventy thousand persons were killed. At _Delhi_, one hundred thousand captives were slain, that his relative, the "Great Mogul," might reign in security. It was his delight to pile up at the gates of cities pyramids of twenty or thirty thousand heads. Later (1401), at _Bagdad_, he erected such a pyramid of ninety thousand heads. He gained a great victory over the "Golden Horde" in _Russia_ (p. 283), conquered the unsubdued parts of _Persia_, entered _Bagdad_, _Bassorah_, and _Mosul_, vanquished the khan of _Kaptchak_, and penetrated _Russia_ in his devastating progress, as far as _Moscow_ (1396). Then followed the conquest of _Hindustan_.

TAMERLANE AND BAJAZET.--The two powerful monarchs, _Tamerlane_ and _Bajazet_, now measured their strength in combat with one another. Trembling ambassadors of the Greek emperor, and of certain Seljukian princes, had waited on _Tamerlane_ in _Gengia_ at the foot of the Caucasus. On the 16th of June, 1402, the two armies--four hundred thousand Turks, and eight hundred thousand Mongols, if one may credit the reports--met at _Ancyra_. The Ottomans were defeated, and _Bajazet_ was taken prisoner. Led into the presence of _Tamerlane_, he found the Mongol quietly playing chess with his son. Asia Minor submitted to the conqueror, who penetrated as far as _Smyrna_. An old man, he was looking towards _China_ as another field for invasion, when he died (1405). _Bajazet_ died soon after his defeat.

TURKISH CONQUESTS: THE GREEKS AND LATINS.--The grandson of _Bajazet_, _Murad II._ (1421-1451), took up anew his projects of conquest. The empire of _Tamerlane_ quickly fell to pieces. His course had been like that of a hurricane, terrible in its work of destruction, but soon at an end. The Byzantine dominion was soon confined to _Constantinople_ and small districts adjacent. On all sides the Ottoman power was supreme. The Greek emperor, _John VII._ (_Palaeologus_), now endeavored, in imitation of previous attempts, to bring about a union of the Greek and Latin churches, and thus remove a principal obstacle to the obtaining of military help from the West. He went to Italy, attended by the patriarch and many bishops. After long debates and conferences on the abstruse points of doctrinal difference, a verbal agreement was reached between the two parties (1439). But the result was received with so much disfavor and indignation in Constantinople, that the effort to bring the sundered churches together came to naught. The Pope, however, stirred up the Christian princes to engage in war against the Turk. The defeat of _Vladislav_, king of Hungary, and of _Hunyady_, at _Varna_ (1444), caused by the rash onset of the king upon the janizaries, was succeeded by another Turkish victory at _Kosovo_, four years later.

FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE.--_Murad II._ was succeeded by his ambitious and unmerciful son, _Mohammed II._ (1451-1481), who determined that _Constantinople_ should be his capital. The city had seven thousand defenders, comprising two thousand Genoese and Venetians, who were commanded by an able man, the Genoese _Justiniani_. The Emperor _Constantine XII._ worshiped according to the Roman rites; while his court observed the Greek forms, and spurned a union with the hated Latin Christians, whose help the emperor was to the end anxious to obtain. The city was stoutly defended for fifty-three days; and when it could be held no longer against the furious assault of the Turks, the gallant _Constantine_, casting aside his golden armor, fell, bravely fighting with the defenders on the ramparts (May 29, 1453). Constantinople became the capital of the Turks. The crescent supplanted the cross, and the Church of _St. Sophia_ was turned into a mosque.

TURKISH GOVERNMENT.--The _Sultan_, or _padischah_, among the Turks is absolute master, and proprietor of the soil. There is no order of nobles, and there are no higher classes except the priests (_imams_) and the religious orders (_dervishes_). In the seraglio of the Sultan, with its palaces and gardens, the harem is separated from the other apartments. The _grand vizier_ presides over the council of ministers (_divan_). The provinces are governed by _pashas_ with large powers. Beneath them is a gradation of inferior rulers in the subdivisions of the provinces. The _mufti_ with his subordinate associates is a high authority on questions of religion and law.

TURKISH LITERATURE.--The literature of the Ottoman Turks is in merit below the literature of other Mohammedan peoples. It lacks originality, being based on _Persian_ and partly on _Arabic_ models.

CHANGES IN THE MIDDLE AGES.--We have seen great changes gradually taking place in the Middle Ages. One is the _centralizing of political authority_ by the subjection of the local rulers, or lords, to the will of the king. Another is the _enfranchisement of the serfs_, and the growing power and self-respect of a middle class. The invention of gunpowder took away the superiority of the mail-clad and mounted warrior. The peasant on the battle-field was a match for the knight.

CLERGYY AND LAITY.--There was a change from the time when the _clergy_ were the sole possessors of knowledge, and the exclusive guides of opinion. In the _lay_ part of society, there was an awaking of intellectual activity and a spirit of self-assertion.

A brief sketch of important ecclesiastical changes, some of which have been adverted to, will be here in place.

POPES IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.--From _Gregory VII_. to _Boniface VIII_., or from near the end of the eleventh to the beginning of the fourteenth century, the highest authority was claimed and exercised by the popes. _Frederick Barbarossa_, the greatest of the German emperors, held the stirrup of _Hadrian IV_., and humbled himself before _Alexander III_. _Innocent III_. compared the authority of _popes_, in contrast with that of _kings_, to the sun in relation to the moon. He excommunicated _Philip Augustus_ of France, _John_ of England, and other monarchs. He claimed the right to refuse to crown the emperor if he should judge him not worthy of the imperial office. The papacy continued to exert these lofty prerogatives until _Boniface VIII_. He asserted that "the two swords," the symbols of both secular and spiritual rule, were given to St. Peter and to his successors: the temporal authority must therefore be subject to the spiritual. The body of _canon law_ was framed in accordance with these views. It embraced the right of the Pope to depose kings and princes. To the sovereign pontiff was accorded the right to dispense from Church laws. With the growth of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the different countries, the Pope, as the supreme tribunal in all matters affecting the clergy and covered by the canon law, gained a vast increase of judicial prerogatives.

THE BABYLONIAN EXILE: THE GREAT SCHISM.--During the residence of the popes at _Avignon_, there was great complaint on account of the dependence of the papacy on France, as well as on account of the heavy taxes levied for the support of the pontifical court, and of the immorality which at times prevailed in it. _Gregory XI_., to the joy of all good men, returned to Rome (1376). But at his death, two years later, a majority of the cardinals elected an Italian, _Urban VI_., in his place. The adherents of the French party made a protest, and chose the Cardinal of Geneva, under the name of _Clement VII_. England, Germany, Hungary, Bohemia, Holland, and almost all Italy, acknowledged _Urban_. France, Spain, Scotland, Savoy, and Lorraine obeyed _Clement_. This great schism of the West created sorrow and alarm among well-disposed Christian people. It tended strongly to diminish the reverence felt for the papal office, and to weaken its influence.

THE REFORMING COUNCILS.--The first important effort to terminate the division was made by the _University of Paris_. Its rector, _Nicolas de Clemangis_, was prominent in the movement. _Gerson_ and other eminent scholars and ecclesiastics took part in it. Three great councils were held; the first at _Pisa_ (1409), the second at _Constance_ (1414), and the third at _Basle_ (1431). At these assemblies, the French theologians proceeded upon the "Gallican theory" of the constitution of the Church, according to which supreme authority was held to reside in a general council,--not in the Pope, but in the collective episcopate. At the Council of _Constance_, where it is a significant fact that the votes were taken by nations, there were gathered not only a throng of prelates and inferior clergy, but also the Emperor _Sigismund_, and a multitude of princes, nobles, and spectators of every rank. "The whole world," it was said, "was there." Three popes, each of whom claimed to be legitimate, were deposed; and under the auspices of the council, which affirmed its own sovereign authority, another pope, _Martin V._, was elected in the room of them. The results of the two councils of Pisa and Constance, as regards the reformation of the Church "in head and members," disappointed the hopes of those who were disaffected with the existing state of things. The Council of _Basle_ exhibited the same spirit as that of _Constance_, and passed various measures in the interest of national churches, for the restriction of papal prerogatives, and for practical reforms. The council, however, broke into two parts; and the hopes connected with it were likewise, to a great extent, frustrated. In 1438 the French synod of _Bourges_ issued "the Pragmatic Sanction," containing a strong assertion of the rights and immunities of national churches,--a document which gave occasion to much controversy down to its repeal under King _Francis I_.

Had it been practicable for good men in the _fifteenth_ century to unite in wholesome measures for promoting the purity and unity of the Church, the religious revolutions of the _sixteenth_ might have been postponed, if not avoided.